In a sense, every power a Scion’s Boons, Epic Attributes and Knacks grant her could be considered magic. Yet, one power seems magical even to them—namely the ability to direct and influence the mysterious force of Fate. All Scions (and even the Gods themselves) are subject to Fate, but only a select few are graced with the power to read and influence it.
A Scion gains one free new spell of the increased value for each new dot of the Magic Purview he gets. Additional spells of equal or lesser value are purchased individually as Boons of the all-purpose Purviews are (for the same bonus point or experience point cost). Some sample spells are provided here, but in theory, the number of possible spells is limitless. Scions with this Purview may design their own spells, but examples are given for each level of advancement. Inherent in each of these spells is the power to undo someone else’s application of the same spell. The target of a spell is automatically Fatebound to the spell’s caster.
Associated With: Bragi, Dian Cécht, Frigg, Hera, Hermes, Huitzilopochtli, Isis, Kalfu, Loki, Lugh, Manannán mac Lir, Nüwa, Odin, Tezcatlipoca, Thoth, Xiwangmu
Spells: Spellcasting requires a dice roll by the casting character’s player. The character must also pay a cost, listed in the spell’s description. If he cannot pay the cost, or does not desire to, he can perform a sacrifice instead. Otherwise, he cannot cast the spell. The cost must be paid for Fate to bend. Unless otherwise noted in a spell’s description, the effects of a successfully cast spell last for one scene (or one hour).
| 1 | Ariadne's Thread |
| 1 | The Unlidded Eye |
| 1 | Measured Foe |
| 1 | Peaceful Meeting |
| 1 | Traitor's Toast |
| 1 | Fork In The Road |
| 2 | Bona Fortuna |
| 2 | Evil Eye |
| 2 | Trading Fates |
| 2 | Legendary Surge |
| 2 | Illwind Curse |
| 3 | Deus Ex Machina |
| 3 | Demand A Labor |
| 3 | Tugging Heartstrings |
| 3 | Blood Mead |
| 4 | Fateful Connection |
| 4 | Bound Spirit |
| 5 | Fate Prison |
| 5 | Sanctify Band |
| 6 | Fate and Switch |
| 6 | Meddlesome Fates |
| 6 | Avoid a Fate |
| 6 | Beast Shape |
| 7 | Transform Person |
| 7 | Transient Visitation |
| 8 | Birthright Bond |
| 8 | Steal Birthright |
| 9 | Scion Adoption |
| 9 | Heart of Mine |
| 10 | Divine Unweaving |
| 10 | Magical Purge |
| 11 | Avatar of Magic, Mystery and Prophecy (The Wyrd) |
Ariadne's Thread
Dice Pool: Perception + Survival
Cost: 1 Legend
The caster declares a target (a person, place or thing) and can thenceforth unerringly track where that target has gone by following the perturbations he leaves in the threads of Fate. If the target is a place, the caster can always find his way back there, no matter how disoriented or lost he has become. This spell’s effect lasts for one day per success rolled, but it can be increased on a daily basis by spending one Legend point.
The Unlidded Eye
Dice Pool: Perception + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower
This spell allows its caster to see magic and supernatural powers that are normally invisible to mortal sight. It also faintly reveals the threads of Fate that entwine people, revealing strong or thick threads and allowing the caster to determine a Scion’s or other supernatural being’s Legend score.
Measured Foe
Dice Pool: Perception + Empathy
Cost: 1 Legend
A glance at the threads about a particular person can tell much of that person’s capabilities, his weaknesses and the way that he handles problems. With a successful casting of this spell, the magician learns the subject’s highest-level Purview or Epic Attribute. Each additional success scored on the casting roll grants knowledge of the next lower Purview or Epic Attribute. If the subject has multiple abilities at the same level, the Storyteller randomly chooses which ones the caster learns.
Note that this spell does not indicate the lack of a particular Purview or Epic Attribute: It simply indicates which ones the target has, starting with the target’s strongest (most defining) powers and proceeding to the weakest.
Peaceful Meeting
Dice Pool: Charisma + Command
Cost: 1 Legend
Odin himself described this as one of the spells he knew. It keeps meetings with strangers from erupting in violence. The Scion must show some symbol of truce, such as a white flag, or otherwise let everyone know they enter a place of truce. Anyone who enters the scene with malicious intent must spend a Willpower point to initiate violence, which breaks the spell. More importantly, the spell prevents accidental quarrels and flashes of temper, of the sort that so often caused Nordic feasts to end in drunken murders and battles. The spell lasts for one scene. If anyone deliberately breaks the truce, the spell Fatebinds the offender to the Scion. Otherwise, the Scion is Fatebound to a random person who becomes a friend while Fatebound, or the Fatebinding lodges to the place of truce itself.
Traitor's Toast
Dice Pool: Wits + Art
Cost: 1 Legend, 1 lethal health level
This spell comes from Egil’s Saga. It provides an example of typical Norse magic, using all three of the basic techniques. A Scion uses it if she suspects poison in her drink. She scratches symbols on her cup (rune-magic), jabs herself and smears her blood on the runes (seidhr), then chants a rhyme asking that Fate reveal any malice and treachery (galdr). Finally, she spends a point of Legend. If the drink contains poison, the vessel breaks. The Scion certainly gains a hostile Fatebinding to whoever poisoned the drink.
Fork In The Road
Dice Pool: Perception + Awareness
Cost: 1 Legend, 1 Will Power
When confronted with two distinct choices, the spellcaster can spend a point of legend and get a sense of what each choice is likeliest to end up causing to happen. A valid reading would be something like, "If I go left, I will reach my destination as normal. If I go right, I will meet someone mysterious." An additional expenditure of 1 Willpower can net one a little more relevant information, such as, "If I go right, someone mysterious will lead me to uncover an item that may help me on my current quest." It rarely gets more explicit than that, however, and naturally, sometimes both choices are perfectly mundane or perfectly supernatural.
The Scion can use this for any pair of distinct choices, no matter how major or meagersuch as whether he should have eggs on toast or cereal for breakfast, or whether he should save a rival Scion trapped under burning debris or leave him to diebut it can only be a pair. Or, rather, the Scion can only have a pair in mind when he uses this spell. Trying to divine three or more choices enters a level of complexity in the tapestry of causality that a spell this minor cannot unravel. (Also, while a Scion *can* use this spell for minor matters if he or she wanted to, it might well end up that it's so minor that one choice makes no real difference from another.)
House Boon: This Boon was developed by fans for home run Scion Game that was later adapted for GateMUSH and cannot be found in any official Scion materials.
Bona Fortuna
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult
Cost: 1 Legend
The caster calls upon Fortune for a good luck streak. Each success gives him one die that he can “spend” to add to any dice pool for any rolls he makes for the remainder of the scene. Once he spends all of his Bona Fortuna successes, they are gone; he must cast this spell again if he wants more. He can apportion multiple successes however he wishes, but the maximum Fortune dice he can add to any single roll cannot exceed half his Willpower score.
Evil Eye
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Presence
Cost: 1 Legend
The caster curses a single target with a withering glance or insulting gesture. Success levies a dice penalty on the dice pool for the target’s next action (i.e., the next action for which dice need to be rolled). One die is subtracted per dot of the caster’s Presence (or one die if the caster has no rating in this Ability). Each success on the casting affects one additional roll. For example, if the caster rolls three successes, he affects the next three rolls made for the target.
Trading Fates
Dice Pool: Wits + Presence
Cost: Dice penalties (see below) + Fatebinding
The caster grants another person a good luck streak, as he can do for himself with the Bona Fortuna spell. The cost for casting this spell, however, is that the caster must himself accept a concomitant penalty at some future time (“stored” by his Legend until spent). If the player rolled three successes, granting the spell’s target a pool of three dice to spend on one or more future rolls, his character suffers a -3 penalty, which he must levy all at once against a single roll—in fact, the next roll he makes for which he spends a Legend point.
Legendary Surge
Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy
Cost: 1 or more Legend
By using a thread of Fate as a conduit, the magician gifts a target with some of his own Legendary energy. For each success scored on the activation roll, the caster can transfer one point of his Legend to the subject. Casting the spell consumes 1 Legend point, and the caster can then send over any amount of Legend, up to the limit of his own remaining pool. The subject doesn’t have to be willing, but excess Legend points (any that would go over the subject’s maximum) are lost.
Illwind Curse
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Medicine
Cost: 1 Legend
Anglo-Saxon witches devised this appalling curse to place on another person’s Fate. It renders its victim both unpleasant to be around and impossible to take seriously. Whenever the victim attempts a social feat that calls for her player to roll a dice pool, the victim breaks wind. Loudly. Odorously. Remove two successes from whatever the player rolled. This reduction can potentially turn a formerly successful roll into a botch. The curse takes effect once for every success rolled by the magician’s player. The Fatebinding from being the target of this curse might last only a scene, but the enmity most likely lasts forever.
Deus Ex Machina
Dice Pool: Charisma + Presence
Cost: 1 or more Legend + Fatebinding
The caster calls for help—and Fate answers in its own way. The most improbable—even impossible—escapes can be delivered by this spell. If the caster hangs from a cliff by his fingernails, a sudden earthquake might cause a ledge to jut out beneath him, catching his fall. If he’s tied to a train track before a speeding train, the train might leap the track over him, continuing on its way as if he weren’t there. The caster cannot choose the manner of help he gets; he has thrown his lot in with Fate and gets whatever destiny brings.
Basically, the Storyteller can get as dramatic and creative as he wishes, but he is under no onus to do so. He can choose a quite mundane rescue if he so desires (the Scion hanging from a cliff is pulled to safety by a boy scout).
The caster is Fatebound to the person, place or means of his rescue. The strength of the binding is 3, unless the caster spends extra Legend points—on a scale of one point per -1 strength—during the casting to lower it (minimum strength of 1).
Demand A Labor
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Presence
Cost: 1 Legend + Fatebinding
The caster can demand that a person perform a task for him. This is called a labor, or sometimes a geas, and until the target of the spell completes the task, he is not whole. Until he is victorious, he cannot spend Willpower points on any action except one that aids the completion of his task. The difficulty of this casting depends on the type of labor requested. The caster cannot, however, demand a labor with a difficulty higher than half his Willpower score.
| Difficulty | Labor |
| 1 Mundane (easy) | Fetch an item attainable in a common store; perform light manual labor; write a book report |
| 2 Mundane (hard) | Fetch a hard-to-find item; perform hard manual labor; solve a puzzle |
| 3 Supernatural (easy) | Deliver a message to a dryad; defeat a weak monster |
| 4 Supernatural (hard) | Defeat a tough monster |
| 5* Herculean | Clean the Augean Stables; fetch an apple of the Hesperides |
(* Beginning Scions cannot demand a labor with a difficulty higher than 4. Only demigods or Gods can cast such magic.)
The player of this spell’s target can attempt to have his character resist its compulsion during casting by rolling Willpower. If the roll garners more successes than the casting roll, the target is unaffected by the spell. Higher dot ranks of this spell exist that allow the caster to levy multiple labors upon a target.
Tugging Heartstrings
Dice Pool: Charisma + Presence
Cost: 1 or more Legend
The caster measures the Fatebinding between two people — possibly including herself — and pulls on the thread to draw them closer. This dangerous spell actually intensifies a Fatebinding. Every two successes scored on the (Charisma + Presence) roll increases the strength of the Fatebinding by one step. Of course, the caster also becomes Fatebound to both subjects, if she wasn’t one of the initial targets.
Note that the caster must know that a Fatebinding exists. This is relatively trivial, though, if she also has the spell The Unlidded Eye.
Casting this spell costs a total number of Legend points equal to the Legend score of both targets added together (with a minimum of one, such as in the case of strengthening a binding between two normal mortals).
Blood Mead
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Craft (Brewing/Cooking)
Cost: 1 Legend
The fabled Mead of Poetry is one of the greatest treasures of the Aesir. One sip of this magical mead can turn any man into a wise counselor or an eloquent skald. Two murderous dwarves made it from the blood of Kvasir, the wisest man who ever lived. Since then, other magicians have duplicated the recipe, though their results are far inferior to the original.
A person’s skills are part of his Fate. Blood Mead acts as a vessel to entangle the Fates of the drinker and the person from whose blood the mead was made, transferring aptitudes from one person to another. To become a proper source for making Blood Mead, a victim needs at least one Attribute and one Ability rated 4 or higher.
Brewing the magic mead requires at least one lethal health level’s worth of blood from a legendary mortal or Scion. The magician mixes the blood with honey and ferments it. The process takes a week and produces three pints of mead. Whoever drinks a pint of the mead temporarily gains one dot each of an Attribute and Ability from the blood donor’s highest (Attribute + Ability) dice pool. If the donor has more than one equally rated high pool, pick a dice pool at random. The imbiber gains the bonus Attribute and Ability for one day.
Killing a Scion or legendary mortal and brewing the mead from her heart’s blood produces a brew of greater potency. Doing so produces a number of pints of Blood Mead equal to (victim’s Legend + 2), and the bonus Attribute and Ability dots last for one month. An imbiber who has experience points to spend can make these bonus dots permanent, at half the normal experience cost. Whether drinking the lesser or greater Blood Meads, however, the benefits do not stack. Drinking two pints of a given Blood Mead do not add two bonus dots. Nor can a person spend experience points to make one trait boost permanent, then drink again for a further bonus.
Fate incidentally forbids a Scion to brew more than one Blood Mead at a time. Unless every dose of the first batch of Blood Mead is imbibed, all further attempts to brew the enchanted drink fail. Lesser mead spoils after a week, but the greater mead lasts indefinitely if stored in an airtight container. A pint of greater Blood Mead counts as a two-dot relic.
Fateful Connection
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 Legend
When the Scion has some sympathetic link to a victim, he can perform this spell over it to loop that victim’s fate around it and cinch it tight. Thereafter, the Scion can affect the victim with targeted Boons or spells remotely through the sympathetic link, regardless of how far away the victim is.
Such a link should be either a piece or a secretion from the victim’s body that carries a detectable DNA trace back to her. Alternatively, it could be some unique object to which the victim has a strong emotional connection.
Bound Spirit
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 1 or more Legend
The magician utters a potent curse, loops the target’s thread of Fate around a particular location and pulls it taut. The thread passes (metaphysically) through the target’s body and anchors her spirit at that location.
Against a target with a lower Legend score, there is no defense; targets with equal or higher Legend scores can resist with (Willpower + Integrity + Legend). If the spell succeeds, the target’s soul is anchored to the particular place. While she can still leave and move about as normal, upon her death her soul becomes a ghost locked into inhabiting the location. Powerful users of the Death or Psychopomp Purviews might be able to free her, but otherwise she can only escape if the caster releases her or some pre-stated condition comes to pass, no matter how ludicrous. The trapped spirit knows what condition will free her and likely goes to great pains to beg those who come near to find a way to fulfill those conditions and free her.
Fate Prison
Dice Pool: Charisma + Command
Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend
With either a curse or an extremely well-worded request, the Scion binds a victim’s fate to a physical location. The location is 500 square feet in area per dot of Legend the Scion has, but it can take any shape the Scion desires, in order to conform to an existing structure’s floor plan. The victim’s player resists this spell by spending one Legend point and making an opposing (Charisma + Legend) roll.
A trapped victim cannot leave the area to which the Scion binds her. She’s physically tethered there by her own destiny.
Sanctify Band
Dice Pool: Charisma + Presence
Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend per person
Some Scions use ritual and ceremony to create a deliberate bond between their members. This magical rite, performed by sharing a meal, a cup of wine or some other joining act, creates a mystical connection between all of the members of a Band.
For each success on the activation roll, the spellcaster can affect one member. Everyone who is brought into the sanctified Band gains the ability to share Willpower points with other members of the Band. A member can voluntarily choose to give one Willpower point to any other member of the Band at any time as a reflexive action; during combat, however, it must be on a tick the donor is able to act on.
This spell only affects willing participants, and only functions on people or creatures with a Legend score. Every subject of the spell also garners a minor (level one) Fatebinding to every other member of the same Band.
Fate and Switch
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy Cost: 2 Legend + 1 Willpower The Scion can twist together the threads of two intelligent beings’ destinies at two separate points then cross the strands over in the middle. So doing, he switches the two victims’ personalities between their bodies. Each switched character uses either her own or her host’s Attributes as follows:
| Her Own | Her Host Body’s |
| Charisma | Strength |
| Manipulation | Dexterity |
| Intelligence | Stamina |
| Wits | Appearance/Perception |
Most of the character’s Abilities transfer over with the personality, excepting Fortitude and Presence. A character’s Willpower rating makes the transition with her as well. If one of the switched bodies is that of a Scion, the newcomer can use any of the Scion’s Epic Attributes and Knacks, as those derive from the physical stuff of one’s ichor. The imposter can use only those of the Scion’s Boons that the Scion normally channels through a Birthright relic—and only if the newcomer retains possession of said relic.
Doing so, however, counts as using a stolen relic. Unfortunately, if a switched-out Scion gets a hold of her own relic, it still functions as if it had been stolen until she’s back in her rightful body. One potential upside to being a victim of this spell is that both victims use the higher of their two Legend ratings for the duration of the time they spend switched. The person whose Legend is normally lower, however, doubles any Legend-point costs she incurs while she’s in the wrong body. She can spend it to do anything a Scion can normally spend Legend to do. It just costs her twice as much.
The two victims remain switched for, at most, a number of weeks equal to the spellcaster’s Legend. The spellcaster can end the effect earlier at will.
Meddlesome Fates
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Command
Cost: 1 Willpower + 5 Legend
The magician must have access to the subjects of this spell or some intimate (Fateful) possession of each. Once cast, the spell creates a new Fatebinding between the two targets. The magician can choose the nature of the binding: For instance, she might designate one of the subjects the recipient and the other the Lover, the Catastrophe, the Nemesis or any other role. She is also not bound to tell either party of the roles that she chooses. In fact, the subjects might not even be aware of the Fatebinding unless they are present when the magician casts the spell (or use their own Magic to see the new thread).
Every two successes scored on this spell creates one level of Fatebinding between the two targets. The magician also gains a Fatebinding to both targets as usual.
Avoid a Fate
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 3 Legend + 1 Willpower
The spell’s caster defines a harmful incident and a person. Until the next full moon, the person becomes immune to that particular Fate. The Scion usually chooses some event that could kill or maim the spell’s target, though the spell could protect against some other calamity. The caster must designate a specific Fate. For instance, the spell could avert “death by drowning” or “death by bullets,” but not “death” in all its forms.
Note that while this spell protects the target from a specific Fate, it does not protect against related unpleasantness. A person protected from “being killed by giants” might still be captured, harassed, tortured or even maimed by those titanspawn. A person protected from “death by drowning” could still suffer a shipwreck. Fate does not go out of its way to assault a protected person with other dangers, but people tend to get cocky when they know they’re protected from certain dangers, which makes them less likely to recognize other dangers.
A Scion can cast this spell on objects and animals. She could protect a house from burning down or protect a cat from being hit by a car. As usual for spells, anything the Scion protects with this spell becomes Fatebound to her. A character can cast the spell multiple times to avoid multiple Fates, but each casting strengthens the Fatebinding. The seeress Gróa cast this spell repeatedly over Svipdag, her son, before he undertook a dangerous quest, but few people besides parents and devoted lovers would tempt Fate by binding themselves so closely to another person, place or thing.
Beast Shape
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Animal Ken
Cost: 3 Legend
Using this spell, a Scion can use Magic to assume the form of a normal animal. This spell resembles the Animal Form Boon. Like Animal Form, the Scion can assume the animal’s physical traits while retaining his own mental abilities, including Epic Attributes. Unlike Animal Form, the Beast Shape spell does not give him the power to communicate with the animal whose shape he assumes. In fact, animals of that type sense something odd about the character and grow agitated near him unless he uses some other power to charm or fool them.
The spell’s other chief difference from Animal Form is time. Casting the spell takes one minute, and it wears off at the next sunrise, though the caster may end the spell prematurely. The character may also elect to recast the spell while still in the form of an animal, spending the necessary Legend while his player repeats the dice roll at difficulty 3. A character must learn Beast Shape multiple times to take the form of different animals, though a character with Knacks such as Detail Variation could use them to adjust an animal form’s appearance.
Transform Person
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Occult
Cost: 1 Legend per dot of Boon
By twisting his own Fate together with that of his victim, the Scion can use any one of his own self-transformation Boons on the victim’s body instead. Acceptable self-transformation Boons include the following:
Animal Aspect (Animal 3), Animal Feature (Animal 6), Animal Form (Animal 7), Beast Shape (Magic 6), Earth Body (Earth 6), Natural Camouflage (Fertility 4), Devil Body (Fire 7), Phase Cloak (Moon 3), Phase Body (Moon 6), Burn (Sun 5), Warrior Ideal (War 3).
To effect this transformation, the Scion’s player makes this Boon’s activation roll and spends Legend points equal to the number of dots the transformation Boon is worth. He must also make any activation roll and pay any cost listed in the chosen Boon’s write-up. The victim’s player reflexively resists the (Dexterity + Occult) roll with a (Stamina + Fortitude + Legend) roll of her own—even if the victim wants the spellcaster to affect her. The Scion can effect only one transformation on a given subject at a time, and he cannot transform any being with a higher Legend than his own. Being transformed by this spell adds one dot to the victim’s Legend for the duration of the effect. The transformation remains in effect indefinitely—or at least until the victim dies or is destroyed.
Transient Visitation
Dice Pool: Charisma + Presence
Cost: 1 Willpower + 5 Legend
Some Gods are just too busy to Visit all of their offspring, or they are stuck in some unfortunate part of the Underworld and can’t get out. By means of this spell, the caster arranges to Visit her child via the world of dreams. When the subject next goes to sleep, the caster appears vividly in a dream and can inform the subject of whatever she pleases. The subject remembers the dream clearly and gains all the benefits of an actual Visitation; granted Relics, Creatures and the like appear to the offspring through coincidence and happenstance.
Because the Visitation was a projected image, though, the God does not actually have to travel to the Scion and does not risk bringing titanspawn in her wake (or getting killed during the trip).
Birthright Bond
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: (1 Legend per point of Birthright) + (1 Legend per object/being)
With this spell, a parent God binds the fate of an item, a creature, a person or a group of people to that of his Scion. Thereafter, the bound item, being or group is a true Birthright that belongs solely to the intended Scion. If it’s a relic, it functions reliably only in the Scion’s hands. If the Birthright represents a creature, a person or a group of people, those beings are loyal to the Scion.
Binding an item or a creature of animal intelligence requires no roll. The player need spend only one point of Legend per point of Birthright on offer, as well as one more point per item or creature. For example, binding a tarnhelm to a Scion would cost three Legend points—two for the Birthright rating, and one more because it is a single object. For intelligent guides, followers or creatures, the spell caster’s player must succeed in a roll of (Manipulation + Occult) contested against a roll of the character’s (Willpower + Integrity + Legend). (Use a single roll of the highest dice pool among the members to bind a group.) A being who is willing to be gifted to a Scion as a Birthright can waive his resistance to this roll.
Once the spell caster’s roll is successful, he must spend one Legend point per dot of Birthright that the being or group represents, as well as one point per creature, person or member of the group. For example, binding a group of spartoi to a Scion would cost eight Legend—three for the Birthright rating, and five more because you get five spartoi for three dots of Followers. The Scion to whom the Birthright is bound need not be the offspring of the God performing this spell. If the Scion is not present at the casting of this spell (which is the usual condition), the spell’s caster must use a fateful sympathetic link.
Steal Birthright
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Stealth
Cost: 1 Legend per point of Birthright + 1 Legend per object or being
Through a convoluted switching of threads in the skein of Fate, the God arranges to temporarily steal away one of the Birthrights of some other Scion. The cost to do so is 1 Legend per dot of the Birthright, plus 1 additional Legend point per object or creature that makes up the Birthright in question. The spellcaster’s player must score a number of successes equal to the Legend point cost of the spell, or else the spell fails.
If the theft succeeds, then the God gains use of the stolen Birthright for a number of days equal to the God’s Manipulation rating. Alternatively, the God could choose to gift the stolen Birthright to any other creature to which the God has a Fatebinding, such as one of his own children. Either way, the Scion who lost the Birthright finds its powers completely inaccessible until the spell is unwoven or has run its course.
Each casting of the spell can only steal one Birthright at a time. That is, five spartoi could be stolen by one casting (because they are all part of one Followers ••• Birthright), but not five spartoi and a tarnhelm.
Scion Adoption
Dice Pool: Charisma + Occult
Cost: 10 Legend
Performance of this rite requires the presence of a God who has conceived a Scion, a God who wishes that Scion to be his instead and a fateful sympathetic link to the Scion in question. Also, it must take place in the Overworld before the Scion’s Visitation. The specific rituals vary from pantheon to pantheon, but the basics are the same in the end. The Scion’s true parent renounces any connection to or claim on the Scion, formally disavowing him as the God’s child. The adopting God then formally claims the Scion as his own, assuming all divine familial responsibilities.
When the ritual is complete, the Scion’s potential for power flows and reformats itself. The Purviews and Epic Attributes that are associated with his divine adoptive parent are the ones that come most easily to him, rather than those of his divine “biological” parent. Such an adoption is usually followed by a Visitation, but that isn’t necessarily required.
Heart of Mine
Dice Pool: Stamina + Empathy
Cost: 1 Willpower + 10 Legend
The magician tangles up her own threads of Fate so securely with the victim that the two become thoroughly enmeshed. For a number of days equal to the successes scored on the activation roll, both parties share the same Fatebindings. Furthermore, if either one dies, the other target also immediately dies. (A particularly vindictive God could even invoke this spell and then kill herself to ensure the murder of a hated foe! Worse still, a God with Ultimate Stamina could survive such a trick….)
This spell does not function on anyone with a higher Legend score than the caster.
Divine Unweaving
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Occult
Cost: Varies
A God’s skill at casting spells dwarfs that of lesser beings, giving him power to undo sticky kinks that have been inexpertly woven into the strands of destiny. Normally, undoing a spell requires that the person doing so have the exact same spell in his repertoire and cancel it out with a second casting that nets at least as many successes on the activation roll. With this spell, however, the God need not know the spell in question to be able to unweave it. He need only spend the same amount of Legend and/or Willpower points the original caster spent and accrue more successes on a (Dexterity + Occult) roll than the original caster got on the activation roll. If he does so, the spell comes undone at once with no ill effects.
This spell cannot unweave eight-, nine- or 10-dot spells, nor can it unweave spells of lower levels cast by Gods whose Legend is higher than that of the unweaver.
Magical Purge
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower + 15 Legend
With a cutting motion that snaps some of the threads on Fate’s loom, the God literally tears the skein of Fate and destroys the ability of other magicians to warm the loom. The God chooses one target, and the God’s player rolls (Intelligence + Occult). Whenever the target attempts to cast a spell, the victim must amass more successes on the activation roll than the God. Otherwise, the spell fails completely with no effect, but at least the Legend (and possibly Willpower) are not spent. Magical Purge remains in effect for a number of hours equal to the invoking God’s (Intelligence x Legend).
A God can only invoke a Magical Purge against one target at a time — holding Fate in abeyance like this taxes even the powers of the greatest Gods. Also, Fate has a tendency to look unkindly on this sort of wanton meddling, and Gods who use this spell often find that their own plans become rather convoluted and twisted for some time afterward.
Avatar of Magic, Mystery and Prophecy (The Wyrd)
Cost: 1 Willpower + 30 Legend
When a God uses the power of The Wyrd, he becomes wholly an agent of Fate for a time. The forces that manipulate even the Gods and Titans themselves, according to their own lofty and incomprehensible design, co-opt the God directly and use him to their own ends. Every power and bit of knowledge the God has amassed becomes Fate’s to control, and the God can only watch. The God might not understand why he’s doing what he’s doing, but his actions always serve the greater designs of Fate. He might be laying out the subtle clues that another Scion sees when she uses her Mystery relic, or he might do only some small thing somewhere far away that will start an enormous avalanche of causality in the fullness of time.
In return for this service to the aims of Fate (i.e., the reason a character would ever use this avatar expression is that) Fate sees fit to reward the God by making his life just a little bit easier. While he’s away doing his work, Fate conspires to bring to a satisfactory resolution some subplot or side-quest that lingers or looms in the cycle. This goal is simply narrated to the players’ satisfaction, without the characters’ having to literally play through the scenes or roll the dice. Any secondary plot that does not resolve the main thrust of the cycle is fair game. (Of course, the cycle’s main plot could be fair game if everyone playing agrees to give up the story but doesn’t just want to leave things unresolved.)
If the God is killed and The Wyrd takes over, he still becomes an agent of Fate and lingering plot lines are still resolved. In this instance, however, the God never returns to his old life, and he is never seen again by anyone who knows him. What’s more, the lingering subplots are not necessarily resolved to the players’ satisfaction. Instead, tragedy strikes, levying harsh setbacks on the survivors.
